The Box office report

A WEDNESDAY clearly 'hijacked' the fortunes of both HIJACK and TAHAAN even though it took a slow opening at the box office. However, number of pre-release screenings and paid previews helped in creating good enough buzz about the film as the weekend progressed. Almost all critics came up with a rating of more than 4 stars while audience too was going gaga about the film, hence resulting in extremely strong word of mouth. Result? Though the opening day collections were (expectedly) on the lower side (20%-30%), there was a sharp increase in collection on Saturday with multiplexes boasting of 60%+ collections. By the time evening shows of Sunday kick started, word had spread that A WEDNESDAY is one of the finest works of Naseeruddin Shah, Anupam Kher and Jimmy Sheirgill which resulted in quite a few multiplexes boasting of sell-out audience. This small film budgeted under 3 crores is a sure shot success in the making and the kind of response it is fetching, it may even turn out to be a box office HIT in a fortnight's time.

HIJACK just couldn't generate good excitement around it's release and the weak link here was clearly Shiney Ahuja who just couldn't attract eyeballs for his solo release as an action hero. The promos were decent enough while the action drama seemed exciting as well. However, Shiney's lack of box office pull followed by average reviews and continued success of ROCK ON ensured that this Kunal Shivdasani directed film won't really find many takers.

Third release of the week, TAHAAN, expectedly went completely unnoticed. The film never had any box office pull to begin with and though it was favored by the critics, audiences certainly had their eyes set on ROCK ON and A WEDNESDAY that came with wholesome entertainment. No wonder, even Anupam Kher was seen promoting A WEDNESDAY all over rather than TAHAAN where he has an integral part to play.

Last week's movies

Failure - correction - disaster of CHAMKU has lead quite a few tongues go wagging. A prominent actress called to say that she did find CHAMKU interesting even though she was made to watch the film against her will. However, after watching the film she was left wondering what was the need of the makers to bombard the music channels with a romantic song featuring Priyanka Chopra when the focus should entirely have been on Bobby Deol? She reasoned that a romantic angle didn't quite justify the action mode of the film! Fair enough, but is that the only reason behind the failure of CHAMKU? Wasn't a poor title the biggest culprit? Didn't lack of box office pull of Bobby played a major dampener? Wasn't an uninspired promotional campaign by the Deols largely responsible for general lack of enthusiasm amongst the cinegoers? There are countless reasons behind a no-show of CHAMKU which resulted in a mere 1.75 crores coming in the opening week. The film didn't work anywhere at all with Mumbai bringing 30 lakhs and Delhi another 22 lakhs. A trade disaster, the film was discontinued at more than 90% of centers after 1st week itself.

C KKOMPANY didn't enjoy a great outing either. The film earned just about 3.5 crores, the kind of money which would have gone in the print and publicity campaign itself. Mumbai was best (though strictly on a comparative note) at 65 lakhs though Delhi was very poor with only 35 lakhs coming in. A certified flop which won't enjoy any respectable numbers in it's second week either, C KKOMPANY is a 'dhakka' for Tusshar Kapoor who started 2008 with a successful ONE TWO THREE. So what went wrong in case of C KKOMPANY? Well, the audience seemed to be clearly bored of comedies with an array of movies belonging to this genre arriving this year. Worse, they all had started looking same due to which it was a wait and watch situation. However, by the time the wait ended, poor reviews were out with no word of mouth whatsoever which resulted in the film disappearing in quick time.

MUKHBIIR did less than what an average C grade sleaze flick does in it's first week as it folded up at 15 lakhs.

During all this mayhem, the only which not just survived but went on to do bumper business was ROCK ON. Frankly, the film's success comes as a pleasant surprise because in the early days, it seemed to be made for the niche audience. However, people from 6 to 60 year old have liked the film which means that an all around appreciation greeted ROCK ON wherever it was screened. A 9.5 crores total on a select release (less than 300 cinemas) isn't a mean deal at all which means that even in the second week, a total with minimal fall (20%-30%) is expected for this Abhishek Kapoor directed film. A HIT, ROCK ON collected a massive 2.6 crores from Mumbai, 1 crore from Delhi and a healthy 70 lakhs from Delhi NCR.